Apple Watch and iPhone Camera connectivity

September 9, 2014

The Apple Watch doesn’t come with a built-in camera, but it connects (actually completely relies on) the Apple iPhone device, therefore it offers a way to connect to your iPhone device via WiFi and Bluetooth (v4.0).

One of the key features that Apple has mentioned on the Apple Watch features’ page is the Remote Camera built-in app. This allows you to use your Apple Watch as a remote viewfinder, in other words, view on the watch what your iPhone iSight camera sees live. You can then you your Apple Watch to capture a photo or set a timer that will capture a photo after a few seconds. So for example you can put your iPhone on a stable surface and grab a shot of your and your friends, making sure that everyone is in the frame and in focus.

Of course you have the able to view the photos that you captured on your device directly on your Apple Watch. Apple also introduced the WatchKit SDK for developers, allowing devs to develop new apps that can take advantage of the iPhone-Watch connectivity and specifically the camera connectivity, and come up with unique, useful and fun apps that take advantage of the iPhone 6/iPhone 6 Plus/iPhone 5S (and all the other compatible devices) connectivity.

I still don’t have any information about video recording / streaming to the Apple Watch. I assume that it takes a lot of bandwidth and it might not be possible. If you do have information about video recording preview, please share your information in the comment section below.

I think that the remote camera is a nice feature to have, but I wait to see what developers will come up with. I also hope that we’ll see a built-in camera in a future model (Apple Watch 2).